media products often challenge in which they are created to what extent does ghost town and letter to the free support this.
When we consider how society links culture we should consider Jean-Francois Lyotard’s idea that in postmodernism there is a “incredulity towards meta-narratives” and due to overarching ideas such as attitudes, values and beliefs that have once before held us together in a shared belief in things like religion, science, capitalism, communism, revolution, war, peace etc as is no more as Lyotard states that no one seems to agree on what used to be real and now everyone has their own perspective so we as a society are rejecting our culture in order to discover a “truth”. In postmodernism we have become aware of differences, diversity as-well as the incompatibility of our aspirations, beliefs and desires and societies and our perspective of culture and society is being corrupted as societies sense of reality also known as the the overarching metanarrative, seems to originate from the culture like the media not as much from society which is then recreated and represented through forms like media as well as communication. It seems that our societal perspective of the ‘real’ seems to be imploding in on itself, and Barker & Emma says its a ‘process leading to the collapse of boundaries between the real and simulations’
When considering media in this case Media video they are a great visual medium to express a message across the video when you look beyond the surface. In this case Commons Letter to the Free, with its surface of hip-hop rap style, sends the audience a message of the historical and current oppression of African Americans as he talks bout how jail is modern slavery as it is a form of business where they have people to do cheap labour for them to which they sell and that why there must always be people in jail. when look at The Ghost Town by The Specials, it’s surface is of reggae as well as ska beyond it once again there is a deeper message as it conveys a message about the lack of employment in London what lead to an economic depression.
when considering Postcolonial theories we should think about Paul Gilroy and his ideology of Double Consciousness which was inspired from W. E. B. Dubois who explores the internal conflict experienced by subordinated or colonised groups in an oppressive society for example African slaves which were brought over to America to work, his theory involves ‘Black Atlantic’ who are people who want to be both European and Black through their birthplace as well as their ethnic political constituency . When we link this back to Commons Letter to the free we can apply double consciousness as it sends the message of the historical and current oppression of African Americans in modern day as he talks bout how jail is modern slavery as it is a form of business where they have people to do cheap labour for them to which they sell and that why there must always be people in jail and thats why they prominently pick lower class people like a-lot of African-American are. postmodernism theory we could look at is hybridisation what is when two genres/forms/ideas combine together to create a new form of combined media. We should relate back to Ghost town by the specials because they use hybridisation to combine ska and reggae into one medium.
Post-colonialism is a way of understandingthe other’ so for this we should consider Orientalism by Edward Said what is the acceptance of the West as well as the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, mind, destiny etc and this relates back to Post-colonialism as it operates a series of signs maintaining the European-Atlantic power over the Orient by creating ‘an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness‘ and another useful quote when consider orientalism is “the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism”
Music videos can change ideas considering this we should explore Alhussser who drew part of his inspiration from Gramsci theory of Hegemonic struggle the chance to reclaim. Gramsci raises the concept of Hegemony to show how certain ideas are more influential than others and normally is in line with dominant ideas as well as the dominant groups and their corresponding dominant interests. Hegemony is an issue that derives from negotiation as well as consent due to this it is not total domination but a continuous exchange of power, through ideas. Post-colonialism tries to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and maintain power of The Empire
To conclude media products often challenge in which they are created to what and I extent does ghost town and letter to the free support this and if we were simply looking at the surface all well see is an interesting music video but when we look beyond it we realise they are trying to convey a greater message of current or past time.